DETECTIVES are hunting armed raiders who stabbed an off-duty police officer as he tried to stop them fleeing from Helsby post office.

PC Steve Binns was heading towards the Indian takeaway with his daughter Hannah, eight, on Friday evening when he spotted the gang running from the sub-post office on Chester Road.

After giving Hannah instructions to hide behind a pillar-box, he chased the three men and wrestled one of them to the ground.

But as PC Binns tried to hold the offender from behind, he was stabbed in the leg with a knife.

'I saw a man standing at the doorway of the post office,' said PC Binns. 'I went to grab him but he twisted out of the way and ran towards the getaway car.

'I ran after him and that's when I noticed a man in the driver's seat. I tried to open the door but the handle was missing.

'Then things happened very quickly. I ran round to the other man and tried to trip him up.

'He stumbled and I managed to grab him from behind and lock his hands by his sides.

'That's when he produced the knife and stabbed it into my leg. I didn't realise I had been stabbed and the man broke free.

'It was only when I went back inside the post office that I felt blood dripping down my leg.'

After the struggle, the raiders escaped in a blue Vauxhall car which was parked on the opposite side of the road.

The vehicle was later found abandoned near to Crossland Terrace in Helsby.

Police say it had been stolen from Birchfield Road in Widnes the night before.

Detectives have not ruled out a link with previous post office raids in the area. They will be liaising with officers investigating attacks in Frodsham, Chester and Ashton to work out whether the same gang is responsible.